Minot Daily News: “Democrat Arguments Against Tax Reform Are Specious at Their Core”

With the House and Senate working this week on reconciling differences between the iterations of tax reform they’ve passed the Democrats are in full-on propaganda mode. Particularly here in North Dakota where Senator Heidi Heitkamp’s transparently partisan vote against the reform puts her re-election next year in serious jeopardy.

Democrat arguments against tax reform are specious at their core, in addition to rhetorically emerging from central casting. Democrats claim no one has had time to read the bill and that the tax plan adds to the deficit. Democrats have no foot to stand on here. They hailed passing a healthcare plan – now a dismal failure – that they did not read. And it is cause to mirth for the left to consider the cost of anything government does since it has been decades since they even recognized that the nation has a problem with debt and deficit.

Furthermore, the chief leftist argument against any tax reform is that they disproportionately benefit “the rich.” This has always been a disengenuous argument, because “the rich” pay the majority of taxes. How can the government cut taxes – which are paid largely by “the rich” – without it benefiting those people who pay the majority of taxes in the first place? Guess what? Small businesses and successful people fund the government; not people who have made the life decision to work for minimum wage.

Clouding the matter is the national election map, which clearly shows that the wealthiest sections of the country are also the most Democratic. So, who are we to believe about the potential benefits of tax reform – 40-something Red or Red-leaning electorates of coastal communities of wealthier folks who purport to be smarter and thus know what’s good for the majority of American states?

Finally, many people are simply tired of being offered tax cuts only to then be characterized as the “rich”by wealthy politicians.

The MDN acknowledges that the reform isn’t perfect. That’s fair. No set of changes to an area of federal policy as byzantine as the tax code is going to leave everyone happy. Certainly we’re going to hear from a litany of special interests upset because their carve outs and deductions and credits are impacted by the reform. Some of their concerns will be contrivances and exaggerations. Some will be legitimate.

Either way, this reform moves us in the right direction, which is a simpler code and lower tax burdens at a time when our economy desperately needs to be unburdened.